In 1986, Princess Diana met James Hewitt, a young officer in the Life Guards, one of the British Army’s cavalry regiments. Diana had been nervous around horses since a fall as a child, and Hewitt offered to give her riding lessons.
The lessons became a close friendship, and the friendship became a relationship. By then, Diana’s marriage to Prince Charles was already deeply unhappy. According to Hewitt’s later account, their relationship lasted around five years and was kept almost completely secret.
When Hewitt was sent to the Gulf War in 1991, Diana reportedly wrote to him regularly. Soon after, the relationship came to an end.
In October 1994, the secret became public. A book called Princess in Love, written by journalist Anna Pasternak, told the story of the romance in vivid detail. It was based on Hewitt’s own account, given with his cooperation.
The reaction in Britain was fierce. Many people were furious that a man Diana had trusted had helped expose her private life. The tabloids turned on Hewitt, and Diana was said to be devastated.
Diana answered a year later. In her famous Panorama interview in November 1995, she was asked about Hewitt. Her reply became one of the most quoted lines of her life: yes, she had adored him, and yes, she had been in love with him. But, she added, she had been very let down.
The book also fuelled an unkind rumour that has followed the royal family for decades: that Hewitt might be Prince Harry’s father. It is not true. Harry was born in September 1984, and Hewitt has said he did not meet Diana until 1986. He has denied the claim himself many times.
Years later, Hewitt reportedly tried to sell Diana’s private letters, which only added to the anger against him. For many people, his story remains a lesson in how easily trust can be broken, and how much Diana lost to the people she let close.